The present invention relates generally to network based systems for processing information provided thereto by a client via an interrogative interface. More particularly, the invention relates to Internet based systems and/or websites on the world wide web which process information provided by users visiting the websites.
A variety of websites present an interrogative interface such as questionnaire or form to a visitor in order to receive information from the visitor. Particular examples include questionnaires posed to visitors in order to effect a registration and questionnaires posed to a visitor in order to effect a purchase of a product. See, e.g., “www.dell.com” and “www.gateway.com.” Thus, as used herein, the term “interrogative interface” means a computer-generated interface in which a user provides information in response to questions or entry blanks (e.g., a business form format). The questions and/or responses may be communicated by any of various input devices including keyboards, touch screens, speech recognition systems, handwriting recognition systems, and pointing devices, to name a few.
The manner in which the information is used and/or processed is as varied as the applications to which the information is pertinent. Further, the problems which these various systems are intended to address are similarly varied.
One recent U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,447, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes an automated system for providing real-time verification of health insurance eligibility. According to the abstract:                Data from a health care provider computer system is used to automatically request real-time electronic insurance eligibility verification information from health care insurance payers. A patient health insurance verification computer system is operatively connected to a patient registration computer system. The verification computer system obtains a data output stream such as a print image from the registration computer system. This data output stream is captured and broken down into separate data fields. The insurance carrier is determined, and the verification computer system determines which electronic data source to request patient eligibility data from. The verification computer system reformats the captured data to fit the data format required by the data source, establishes a communications link to the data source, and sends the reformatted data to the data source. The data source sends responsive patient specific eligibility data which the verification computer system uses to automatically verify insurance coverage. Health insurance verification becomes much more reliable since no human intervention is required to carry on the automatic verification process. Additionally, automatic verification can be performed conveniently without double data entry even in environments with preexisting admissions systems that cannot be easily modified.        
This system also could be implemented over the Internet or some private network, depending on the target users.